I'd rather own cryptocurrency than precious metals, and at that I'd rather own BitCoin than Gold.

The whole concept that you're going to walk around and trade in gold during a "grid down" situation is laughable. You'll last a few days and then it's game over.

BitCoin and blockchain technology as a whole are here to stay. We're going to see it integrated in virtually every facet of commerce over the coming decade. As Jong said, the big banks are getting behind it.

Whether or not the fluctuations make it a viable option for use is a good question - what's the hyper inflated USD really worth? What if it loses further value?

Lastly, it's not untraceable. Which is one of the main reasons why the banks are getting more interested in it. Of course that also means that they can't easily launder hundreds of billions of dollars anymore, so maybe they'll create new "safeguards" and "banking privacy acts" to do so.

I'm thinking that the banks have some vault in iceland with long-term UPS to track mortgages. But that may also apply to bitcoin. It may take a GLOBAL grid shutdown to disappear bitcoin and the mortgages.

I am glad I diversified my own portfolio into 22LR and 7.62 ammo for a possible barter economy. Canned food, etc.

But, I also heard somewhere that WalMart was getting into some type of digital currency, and I read Russia is coming up with something as well.

Many of the current currencies have come from Russian firms. Or are owned by Russian billionaires.

I'd rather own cryptocurrency than precious metals, and at that I'd rather own BitCoin than Gold.

The whole concept that you're going to walk around and trade in gold during a "grid down" situation is laughable. You'll last a few days and then it's game over.

BitCoin and blockchain technology as a whole are here to stay. We're going to see it integrated in virtually every facet of commerce over the coming decade. As Jong said, the big banks are getting behind it.

Whether or not the fluctuations make it a viable option for use is a good question - what's the hyper inflated USD really worth? What if it loses further value?

Lastly, it's not untraceable. Which is one of the main reasons why the banks are getting more interested in it. Of course that also means that they can't easily launder hundreds of billions of dollars anymore, so maybe they'll create new "safeguards" and "banking privacy acts" to do so.

Agreed. However, I still own gold and silver because it’s cheaper.

Crypto currencies are here to stay and will start playing a bigger part in people’s lives. Want to get in on the ground floor? Guess which one the .gov will go to...

__________________Come on boys, you got to do it right, pray to the moon in the middle of the night

I have a a wild ass guess that it's just beginning. I don't like the stock market right now because it just seems like it's ready to blow. So if it blows, where are people going to put their money? One thing they usually do is put it in gold, well with gold it's real hard to give it to someone else that is far away. My guess is cryptocurrencies. I can send someone money on the other side of the world for limited fees in a short period of time.

Feel free to shoot my WAG down. I could be talking out of my ass.

Respectfully you are talking out of your ass. How do you know the stock market is ready to blow? What are you basing this off of? Have you run the EPS of every stock in the S&P500? If the currency market blows and has collapsed why in the hell are you sending money to people far away?

I've been in the financial industry for 20 years. I've also been an adunct professor of economics since 1999. Cryptocurrencies make no sense to me. It's a tulip bulb feeling that I have. I think the biggest thing they bring to the table is block chain technology. This could impact us in the future. Bitcoin only has value because people believe that it has value. I haven't been to one single store that accepts it for goods and services (which is the definition of money). So in my mind, it's not money. Any online stores that accept Bitcoin immediately convert them to US dollars because for them to accept Bitcoin means they are taking a risk because of the wild fluctuations in value.

With that said, I'll just say that I'm not a fan and I understand it probably better than the average person. Now I'll open it up for anyone who wants to convince me that cryptocurrency is a good thing for the average person. I'll willingly listen.

The shiteaters at the Central Banks are already scheming up another scam. "Fedcoin" is in the works so they can bilk more money out of people. And it's completely fiat because they will just do what they did with bitcoin --- alter the block chain algorithym to be able to print more "cash" whenever they want. Same mechanism they use to fix the price of gold/silver. Just 'print' more e-fiat.

The whole "anonymity" aspect is stupid, IMO. The feds already have entrance and exit nodes covered so it defeats the entire purpose. Plus if the .gov just says "oh yeah these are illegal now", guess what ---- 99% of people who have them are shit out of luck because the only way they know how to trade is via the 'normal' way of paypal accounts and bitcoin exchanges.

Bitcoin is a speculative swindle. Nothing about it intrinsically is worth anything. If you want to jump-in/jump-out to make a quick buck that's cool. But many people pretend this shit is somehow a long term asset with stellar prospects to replace traditional metals. To that I just have to laugh. No matter the generation, the young people always think that they're smarter than the old people who've seen it before and that they won't fall victim to a trap the way their parents and grandparents did.

The shiteaters at the Central Banks are already scheming up another scam. "Fedcoin" is in the works so they can bilk more money out of people.

I haven't heard of this one yet. The fed can do what they want here and that's a bit frightening. They can deem it an "investment" and regulate the shit out of bitcoin. They can make it illegal to own, make it illegal to convert it to US dollars, or whatever else they can think of. The fed is not going to let something become a threat to the way they've done things for years. They may not be able to stop it but they'll do what they did to gambling $, and not allow US banks to accept or deal with gambling institutions.

If the economy ever did return to barter, it seems to me gold, silver, diamonds, are just like trinkets and beads. You sure as shit can't eat that gold. It's just like ANY other "money" in that it only has value if two people agree it has value. "Bling" value. Just like paper money, bitcoins, or other money.

We all accept "plastic" money now...credit OR debit ("check") cards in places we'd never have accepted a "personal" check 20years ago. Yet it can still take 3-5days for an out-of-state check to "clear" my bank. WTF.

Intrinsic value is a whole different ballgame. "true value" (...like the hardware store). I should probably invest in 100K 1/4-20 nuts/bolts for the barter economy.

Bitcoin sounds like a form of border-less "global money". I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. But, more and more I'm hearing about it being accepted though, seems because of it's several years of upward (but volatile) trend.

The shiteaters at the Central Banks are already scheming up another scam. "Fedcoin" is in the works so they can bilk more money out of people. And it's completely fiat because they will just do what they did with bitcoin --- alter the block chain algorithym to be able to print more "cash" whenever they want. Same mechanism they use to fix the price of gold/silver. Just 'print' more e-fiat.

The whole "anonymity" aspect is stupid, IMO. The feds already have entrance and exit nodes covered so it defeats the entire purpose. Plus if the .gov just says "oh yeah these are illegal now", guess what ---- 99% of people who have them are shit out of luck because the only way they know how to trade is via the 'normal' way of paypal accounts and bitcoin exchanges.

Bitcoin is a speculative swindle. Nothing about it intrinsically is worth anything. If you want to jump-in/jump-out to make a quick buck that's cool. But many people pretend this shit is somehow a long term asset with stellar prospects to replace traditional metals. To that I just have to laugh. No matter the generation, the young people always think that they're smarter than the old people who've seen it before and that they won't fall victim to a trap the way their parents and grandparents did.

I have not heard the US was working on there own coin. But China is. Bitcoin is extremely hard to trace especially if you do not use traditional mediums like pay pal.

As far as gold and silver go. If the world goes to shit. I have dozens of bottles of alcohol that will be worth far more to people then a brick of gold.

If the economy ever did return to barter, it seems to me gold, silver, diamonds, are just like trinkets and beads. You sure as shit can't eat that gold. It's just like ANY other "money" in that it only has value if people agree it has value. Just like paper money, bitcoins, or other money.

Intrinsic value is a whole different ballgame.

I'd rather have an endless supply of cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and other items along those lines than gold. But, that's just me. When trading gets to the point people are starving...I reckon food talks all the louder and money will learn its true place.

So if I own gold and land I am worse off in a critical situation than someone who owns a string of bytes on electronic media?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

How will you be trading bitcoin, then?

The point I'm making is that neither is a longterm viable option for you in that situation. In the interim of a bad situation, people will still use good old-fashioned local currency and then barter. Many more people will immediately resort to looting as seen in virtually every single disaster the world has ever undergone.

As for grids going down...short of Lil Kim successfully nuking us, I don't think you need to spend all night worrying about that. The entire global economy relies on the grid being up. Ipso facto it's the first thing to be repaired.

Respectfully you are talking out of your ass. How do you know the stock market is ready to blow? What are you basing this off of? Have you run the EPS of every stock in the S&P500? If the currency market blows and has collapsed why in the hell are you sending money to people far away?

I've been in the financial industry for 20 years. I've also been an adunct professor of economics since 1999. Cryptocurrencies make no sense to me. It's a tulip bulb feeling that I have. I think the biggest thing they bring to the table is block chain technology. This could impact us in the future. Bitcoin only has value because people believe that it has value. I haven't been to one single store that accepts it for goods and services (which is the definition of money). So in my mind, it's not money. Any online stores that accept Bitcoin immediately convert them to US dollars because for them to accept Bitcoin means they are taking a risk because of the wild fluctuations in value.

With that said, I'll just say that I'm not a fan and I understand it probably better than the average person. Now I'll open it up for anyone who wants to convince me that cryptocurrency is a good thing for the average person. I'll willingly listen.

I totally admit I'm an amateur and just basing my opinion on what I have read and looking through history of the stock market. I'm curious, have you predicted the previous stock market crashes?

__________________
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Winston Churchill

Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing.

I have not heard the US was working on there own coin. But China is. Bitcoin is extremely hard to trace especially if you do not use traditional mediums like pay pal.

From what I understand, the Fed has basically figured out how to defacto track BTC transactions. This article explains how. Basically, it's the same way they do everything --- threaten a legal business and get 'backdoor' access that allows them to use their own home-grown tools to find you. In this case it was called a "Refactor Tool". It covers 99% of the way all BTC people conduct trades with BTC.

IMO, BTC is ridiculous as a "SHTF" form of wealth preservation. While all evidence points to EMPs being relatively ineffective against vehicles ("Super" EMP weapons notwithstanding), the grid is extremely vulnerable. That, coupled with the fact that the NSA's little toolbox of e-bugs got released a while back, raises the bar for what possibly a Stuxnet-like attack could do. A cascade failure could certainly melt down all the substations and SCADA-controlled power networks nationwide. It's really not that difficult. We've been inundated for years with the ChiComs constantly penetrating our civilian infrastructure networks again and again. It's not that far fetched to envision a cyber attack wreaking absolute havoc across the nation.

And while yes, they would immediately try to fix the issue ---- you can't just hop on into home depot and pick up a 120KW substation transformer and install it overnight. And even if you could, the gov would likely fuck it up and turn it into a 3 month $4billion budget project ---- with overruns.

In a grid down situation if you cannot use it, eat it, shoot it, or plant it, it is kind of useless at the moment. Precious metals are great for when and if the economy comes back but in the mean time you have to survive through whatever shit is going down at the moment.

Today!, in a grid down situation, is way more important then tomorrow when shit first, hits the fan.

From what I understand, the Fed has basically figured out how to defacto track BTC transactions. This article explains how. Basically, it's the same way they do everything --- threaten a legal business and get 'backdoor' access that allows them to use their own home-grown tools to find you. In this case it was called a "Refactor Tool". It covers 99% of the way all BTC people conduct trades with BTC.
.

This Tool came out a few years ago. Needless to say there are many many ways around the US government tracking the currency at this time.

Edit to add. I always pay taxes on any of my transactions in a good faith gesture to be an upstanding citizen and pay my far share of taxes to support the congressional slush fund for sexual harassment. ( cross thread points :)

I'd rather have an endless supply of cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and other items along those lines than gold. But, that's just me. When trading gets to the point people are starving...I reckon food talks all the louder and money will learn its true place.

So, from what I'm seeing the bitcoin could be just as valid as "money" as a VISA card was in the early 1960's. Except maybe even moreso, since it's global.

The difference may be in risk and consumer protections. Not that people haven't cleaned out pensions and other retirement/investment accounts in the USA in spite of all that...on a regular basis in this country. Isn't that what the term "bubble" really means? Someone's about to steal it all and get away with it.